The Black Thumb

by Frankie Bow

  Donnie didn’t pick up when I called, so I left a message thanking him for sending Honey Akiona to my rescue. I told him I was a free woman for now, and could meet for our dinner date that night as planned. As soon as I disconnected, my phone rang. It wasn’t Donnie calling me back, though. It was Emma.

  “Emma. I’m glad you called. Where are you guys? Are you in Pat’s office?”

  The rain had picked up again and was drumming so hard on my car roof I had to press the phone tight to my ear to hear. I could feel an occasional drop of cold water hitting my skin. Great. A leak. I couldn’t wait to hear what Earl Miyashiro of Miyashiro Motors had to say about that.

  “Yeah, we’re in Pat’s office,” Emma said. “How did you know?”

  “The close reverb. You sound like you’re in a small, cluttered space.”

  “You liar. It’s ’cause you can hear his punk rock music playing.”

  “That too.”

  “Why are you in Pat’s office? I’m surprised you didn’t let yourself into mine and help yourself to my espresso machine.”

  “We’d never go in your office without permission,” Emma said.

  “Uh-huh. What’s the real reason?”

  “They’re waxing the floors in your building today.”

  Among the three of us, I had the office most congenial to hanging out, thanks to the aforementioned espresso machine. Pat had furnished his office by buying the hairdryer chairs from Tatsuya’s Moderne Beauty when they went out of business. The chairs were comfortable enough, but you had to be careful not to bump your head on the chrome hairdryer bonnets.

  No one visited Emma’s office if they could help it. Emma refused to pay for her own office furniture. Visitors had to stand and try not to look at the brain in a jar she kept on her file cabinet.

  “Where have you been?” Emma asked.

  “You won’t believe what just happened. So after paddling, I came back to my office—”

  “Molly, you won’t believe what we found. Okay, Pat found it. He was reading Melanie’s files. Man, she really didn’t like you, did she?”

  “How does Pat have Melanie’s files?”

  “He made a copy for himself, before he turned in the laptop. Pat, give me that. Nah, I’m gonna read it to her. Just give it! OK Molly, are you listening?”

  Pat eventually came on the line.

  “We think she was writing notes for some kind of a roman à clef,” Pat said. “It’s pretty bad.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Didn’t you guys earn your Ph.D.’s from some fancy literature program?”

  “Yes, but we never dealt with trivialities like grammar or mechanics or plot. Those things were supposedly beneath us. If anyone bothered about that stuff, their writing would be dismissed as workmanlike. So are you going to read it to me? I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Alright,” Pat said. “We’ll start at the beginning. Don’t want to miss a single word.”

  “Just get it over with.”

  “Sorry. I can’t. Emma, you do it.”

  Emma came on the line.

  “Wimp. Are you listening, Molly? In contrast to her carefree appearance, Melody Parnell had traveled through the jaw of hell, oppressive and discouraging as the used up bottle of shampoo with only the fragrant dregs clinging to the sides of the bottle that reclined mockingly on her bathroom counter.”

  “The ‘jaw’ of hell? Emma, you really don’t have to keep—”

  “But Melody was a strong powerful woman, her optimistic hope blossoming like a glistening fountain spewing it's watery jewels heavenward.” That’s i-t-apostrophe-s by the way.”

  “I don’t know if I can keep listening to this. I’m getting grad-school flashbacks.”

  Melody—I mean Melanie—had never been good at taking criticism. It got to where no one in seminar wanted to be her critique partner.

  “You gotta hear this part, though,” Emma said. “Dolly Hardup was jealous of Melody. Jealous and bitter.”

  “Jealous and bitter? What is she, thirteen?”

  “Dolly was jealous of Melody’s freedom,” Emma continued, “with her repetitive job like a prison, and her boring vanilla romance, she had never known the freedom that Melody had. The freedom of being a wild, uninhabited spirit.”

  “Emma, I’ve heard enough. Really.”

  “You sure? There’s a lot more.”

  “Oh, by the way, speaking of prison, guess what—”

  “Oh, Gotta go, Molly. Sherry’s calling.”

  “Sherry? You really called Donnie’s ex-wife?”

  “Yeah, she wants a change of scenery. I guess things didn’t work out with Mad Dog. Sorry Molly, I gotta get this.”

  “I got arrested—”

  But Emma had already hung up.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DONNIE OPENED THE FRONT door, gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and rushed back into the kitchen. I was left to make conversation with his son Davison, who was sprawled on the sofa. Davison Gonsalves was just as I remembered him. Take Donnie’s muscular build and strong features, and slap on a dimwitted smirk, a sprinkling of acne, and a mess of ill-advised tattoos.

  He had acquired some new ones since I’d last seen him. In addition to the disgusting giant centipedes crawling up his arms, a freshly-inked trio of intertwined blue and red cobras now wound around his neck and up to his cheek like a gorgon mutton chop. He wore gold hoop pirate earrings and a thick gold rope necklace, because apparently the vermin-themed ink covering his entire upper body wasn’t eye-catching enough.

  Fortunately for Davison, he would never have to worry about making a good impression in a job interview. As Donnie’s only child, he was heir apparent to the madly popular Donnie’s Drive-Inn. I supposed now I was marrying Donnie I could try to seize control of Donnie’s Drive-Inn as if I were a soap-opera villain, but I wasn’t particularly interested in running a fast-food franchise. Let Davison have it. As much as I might complain about my job, I actually enjoyed teaching. And I certainly preferred it to trying to run a restaurant.

  “Eh Aunty.” Davison didn’t stand up to greet me; he simply raised his brimming glass of wine in my direction.

  “Davison, what are you drinking? You’re not twenty-one yet.”

  Whose voice was coming out of my mouth? I sounded exactly like my mother.

  “It’s fine, Molly,” Donnie called from the kitchen. “In Italy, everyone drinks wine at the dinner table. Even the children. You know that.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Donnie came into the living room, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.

  “It’s a healthier approach to drinking. The Mediterranean countries have a very low rate of alcoholism. You okay?”

  Donnie slung the towel over his shoulder and took my hands in his. Normally he would give me a hug, but he probably wanted to show some restraint in front of his son.

  “Yes. I’m fine. Thank you. Honey—” I glanced at Davison, who had been Honey’s former classmate and might have recognized her name. “I’m acquainted with the person you sent. She seems like a good choice. Thank you.”

  “She is good. Greg told me she—”

  Something sizzled loudly in the kitchen and Donnie dropped my hands to rush back. We’d have to talk about my legal troubles later.

  Davison tipped his head back and drained his glass, his snake tattoo undulating as he gulped. Then he stood slowly, lurched in my direction and caught me in a hug. He was squeezing much tighter than necessary, probably trying to keep his balance.

  “Sorry about your loss, Aunty,” he slurred into my ear, before releasing me and flopping back down on the couch. “Things is official now, ah? Eh, I like see your ring.”

  “We haven’t picked out rings yet.” I looked around for a place to sit, but Davison was positioned sideways, his feet up on Donnie’s Ettore Sottsass sofa. He was, as usual, taking up as much room as possible. I settled for one of the koa wood chairs. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the couch.

&n
bsp; “I want to take another look at Fujioka’s selection,” I said. “It would be nice to support a local merchant. Even if it means getting our wedding rings at Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply.”

  Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply was the only surviving local vendor that sold fine jewelry. I hadn’t seen anything on offer I really liked. Fujioka’s less-expensive sets looked sad and cheap. The pricier offerings included diamond-encrusted horseshoes, chandelier-like clusters of different-sized gems, and “contemporary” designs with stones set on long prongs like alien eye-stalks.

  “Nah, you can’t choose the ring yourself.” Davison pushed himself up to a sitting position, knees spread so wide he still took up most of the couch. “Dad’s gotta pick something an’ surprise you, all romantic kine, like that thing on TV. Girls like romantic stuff an’ li’dat.”

  “I’m not a big fan of surprises, Davison.”

  “Eh, Dad says I’m gonna be best man at you guys’ wedding.”

  “Case in point. I mean, that’s lovely.”

  “Gotta start working on my speech already. I could talk about when I was taking your class. Cause it’s when I met you, yeah?”

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something very nice.”

  I was unable to quash the suspicion that Davison would just end up pulling something off the Internet the night before the wedding. My first encounter with Davison Gonsalves—before I really knew his father—was when he had copied a classmate’s paper word for word and handed it in as his own. My dean at the time didn’t want to chase away paying customers with accusations of cheating, however well-founded, so I had been forced to give Davison a do-over.

  Incidentally, the topic of the paper was “Integrity.”

  “Oh, and never said congratulations, but,” Davison said. “Congratulations, ah?”

  “Thanks.”

  I didn’t bother to correct Davison on the matter of congratulating the bride (something etiquette manuals warn against, lest one imply the woman was the pursuer, Heaven forfend). This prohibition seemed antiquated to me, although Emma Nakamura supported it, on the grounds that married men have been shown to live longer, healthier lives than single men. Married women, on the other hand, died sooner than their unmarried counterparts.

  “It’s how come they give you the diamond,” Emma had explained. “To make up for all those years of life they’re gonna suck outta you.”

  Donnie emerged from the kitchen balancing a platter of linguine con vongole, and we all headed to the table.

  “So what I call you now, Aunty?” Davison asked me as we seated ourselves for dinner. “When I met you, was ‘Professor’, yeah? Then was ‘Aunty’ when you hooked up wit’ my dad. I can call you ‘Mommy’ now?”

  “‘Professor’ works for me.”

  “Can he call you Molly?” Donnie suggested.

  “I guess.”

  Davison grabbed the bottle of Sangiovese from the center of the table and started to refill his glass.

  “It hasn’t had time to breathe,” Donnie chided him.

  “No worries.” Davison poured up to the brim. “I give ‘em mouth-to-mouth.”

  I watched the purple wine splash over the top of Davison’s glass and soak into Donnie’s white tablecloth.

  “So now you’ve had some time to think about it,” Donnie asked, “have you changed your mind about the house?”

  “What house?” Davison asked.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DONNIE LOOKED AT ME, as if to say, “It’s your show.”

  “Me? Right. Davison, your father and I might have an opportunity to buy the Brewster House, and move in after we get married.”

  “Aw, no!” Davison’s voice held a note of genuine panic. “The Brewster House? Where da kine, your friend, just died, yeah?”

  “Yes. It was very sad. But I don’t think we should let our entire—”

  “Cannot live there, Aunty, I mean Molly. Ugh! Get chicken skin just thinking about it.”

  “I’m sure most old houses have seen some tragedy,” I said. “Enough people live there over enough generations, eventually something bad will happen.”

  “But Aunty, Molly, Brewster House is haunted. Everybody knows that.”

  “It’s not actually haunted. It just looks that way because of when it was built. The toys from the Victorian era look possessed too. Have you ever seen those dolls with the china heads? Anyway, there is one truly scary thing. Mrs. Masterman told me the Brewster House is in a tsunami zone. She thinks it’ll be impossible to get a traditional mortgage.”

  “Maybe all of this bad news will push the price down,” Donnie said.

  “That’s how come da kine, your friend, wen’ jump,” Davison insisted. “Was the keiki.”

  “The what? The child?”

  “Ai! Obake, but. Not one real keiki!”

  “Davison,” Donnie interrupted, “speak English.”

  Oblivious as he was to Davison’s numerous faults, Donnie wouldn’t tolerate Davison slipping into Pidgin in my presence. It didn’t bother me. I had no problem asking for clarification if I didn’t understand something. But Donnie didn’t like it for some reason, and come to think of it, I had never once heard Donnie speaking Pidgin.

  “A ghost child?” I asked Davison. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sometimes can hear her crying inside the house. All scary kine too, not like one regular baby. Gets you to follow her up the stairs, then makes you jump down an’ you die. Wahine see one cute baby, cannot resist. Ho, Molly. You get da kine try make you buy the house, ah?”

  “Are you saying I’m being lured into this home purchase by a ghost?”

  “Dad, you gotta stop her. You both gonna end up like da kine, the girl that wen’ jump.”

  “Davison,” Donnie said, “Fontanne Masterman has lived in the Brewster House for decades, and nothing bad has happened to her.”

  “Her husband died,” Davison said.

  “Doc Masterman was ninety-four years old.”

  “So you wouldn’t feel comfortable living there, Davison?” I asked.

  “No way. Eh, Molly, come stay here. You go in the big bedroom wit’ Dad, my room right down the hallway. No need get one new hale.”

  “English!” Donnie hissed through clenched teeth.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I said.

  Despite being situated in both a flood zone and a lava zone, the scene of a gruesome tragedy, and—as I had just learned—probably haunted, the Brewster House now seemed more appealing than ever. I drove home in a sunny mood, picturing Donnie and me as newlyweds setting up our new life together in the Brewster House. If Davison was afraid to visit us there, that was his problem.

  My house phone started ringing as I was unlocking the door. I managed to get inside and grab the receiver before the caller hung up. It was Leilani Zelenko, my real estate agent.

  You might have seen Leilani’s color newspaper ads, featuring a soft focus photo of a beaming Leilani, a flowery lei po`o atop her cascading strawberry blond hair.

  Unlike the serene island princess depicted in the Zelenko Realty ads, the real-life Leilani Zelenko was a whirlwind of disorganization. File folders were jumbled on the shelves of her office in no discernible order. Loose papers lay scattered around her desk where they had fallen, like soldiers at Antietam. Leilani’s convertible Le Baron was piled with suit jackets on hangers, old takeout containers, bags of candy, and even more papers and folders. The wind would seize the occasional burger wrapper or disclosure form and blow it out of the car with a disconcerting foomp as Leilani careened down the island’s narrow thoroughfares.

  And yet, the chaotic Leilani Zelenko was one of the top real estate agents on the island. She knew how to work with appraisers, mortgage brokers, and escrow companies to get transactions to proceed smoothly. Her stated philosophy was “follow rules when you can, bend rules when you must.” The secret to working with Leilani was to tell her what I wanted and then avert my eyes and hope for the best.
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  “Aha!” Leilani proclaimed, at a volume that made me jerk the phone away from my ear, “At last you are at home. Okay, I have three listings you must hear.”

  Between her Ukrainian accent and the fact she was eating something, I could barely understand her. I was about to apologize for bothering her in the middle of dinner, but then I remembered she was the one who had called me.

  “Hi, Leilani, what’s going on?”

  “I find you three. Two houses in price range, and one above, just little bit, we look anyway.”

  “I appreciate your looking for alternatives, Leilani, but the Brewster House is the one I really want.”

  “Ah, but maybe you change your mind about that. After this death of your friend, very bad. I drive you around, you see other options. Is just to look, Maw-ly.”

  “I’ve seen what’s out there. Unless you have another pocket listing, there’s nothing else I’m interested in.”

  I decided not to tell her about my arrest. Leilani was the only agent who had access to the unlisted Brewster House, and I didn’t want to alarm her into dropping me as a client. She would read about it in the paper anyway, if the news didn’t get to her from the coconut wireless first.

  “But Brewster House is bad house, and will also be very hard times to get financing.”

  “I know. Mrs. Masterman told me. It’s in a tsunami zone and a lava hazard zone.”

  “There is something else.”

  “Termite damage?”

  “A little, but not serious. The flying termites. Not ground termites.”

  “Well, I already know there was a death on the property,” I said. “You’re not going to tell me the house is haunted, are you?”

  “Ah. So you know?”

  I pulled my shoulder up to brace the receiver against my ear while I poured myself a glass of wine.

  “I heard it from an unreliable source,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

  “Coqui frogs. Not in the daytime, when you have been there, but they are very loud at night. We have to disclose about coquis.”

  “I know about coqui frogs. I have them here at my place. I’m used to them. So that’s it? Tsunami zone, lava hazard zone, coqui frogs, ghosts—”